You're not defending the pope's position, then? The pope seems . . . and I use "seems" quite literally, since there is no argument to speak of in the article . . . to assert that gender is natural, i. e. innate. You're not defending that? If not, then how can you say that the pope debunks anything?

edit: incidentally, your argument ca. breastfeeding has nothing to do with gender. It has a lot to do with sex. And yes, there's no doubt that the plumbing and accessories of the female are very different from the plumbing and accessories of the male. I will stipulate the sexual differences. I will even stipulate that gender is not entirely socially constructed. No one is foolish enough to argue for pure nature or pure nurture in these things. Except the pope, apparently. Again, what exactly has the pope debunked?

LOL. By "normal" I mean average, not an axe murderer, not a raging sociopath, not a habitual child molester, not a scat freak...

Okay well by that standard everyone can provide normal parenting. My post was not about what's normal however but about providing the best balance for children.

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But you seem to imply that without breastfeeding, one is at great risk of being any one or combination of the above. You propose that a child not breastfed is doomed to social, physical, and intellectual failure. You hypothesize that the parent that does not breastfeed her child should have her parenting license pulled.

Oh dear I didn't mean to imply that... I was simply saying that gender qualities were in part hereditary.

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And BTW, do you apply this same rather narrow criteria to a lesbian couple?

I apply it to everyone.

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Or in that case do you assume that a lack of tossing a football around places the child at an insurmountable disadvantage?

Depends on what you mean by 'insurmountable'.

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I mean, can your argument possibly be any more stereotypically stilted?

Oh I don't think Field's work is stereotypically stilted but I'll take another look at it just to make sure.

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Did I say LOL?

You did but I don't think the Touch Research Institute (TRI) heard you or would take any notice if they had.

Certainly not. I think he might have reached the right conclusions by a different route than I would ever have done but I've only seen reports of what he said rather than the full text.

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incidentally, your argument ca. breastfeeding has nothing to do with gender. It has a lot to do with sex.

Well that's your opinion but I don't accept it. Mrs Keymaker says that breastfeeding is in part an emotional experience not just a mechanical process and Oxford says that gender means "the state of being male or female... chiefly in cultural or social contexts" the key word being 'chiefly' to mean not exclusively.

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Again, what exactly has the pope debunked?

I s'pose what he really debunked was idea that if something is demanded on grounds of equality for example it necessarily means it's justified. If it's considered harmful to humanity because it leads to global warming for example demanding the destruction of the rainforest might not be justified.

I s'pose what he really debunked was idea that if something is demanded on grounds of equality for example it necessarily means it's justified. If it's considered harmful to humanity because it leads to global warming for example demanding the destruction of the rainforest might not be justified.

km

So what the pope has so thunderously debunked is a truism. Congratulations to his holiness.

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